We here are big fans of physical media, which is why we’ve put a lot of emphasis on vinyl.

But the world left us behind over a decade ago, so we’re finally catching up. Over the weekend, we put the entire Anti-Creative Records catalog up on Bandcamp, where you can stream it all for free. If you’d rather not stream, you can download any of the albums for whatever price you feel is appropriate.

In the past, the individual bands had all of their music available digitally in various spaces, but we’ve centralized it. We’ll be playing with other digital avenues for our releases in the near future.

For the past 10 years, Anti-Creative has been accepting mail orders via an Upland, CA PO Box. But over the past three years or so, we’ve probably recieved less than half a dozen orders by mail. Everyone one is ordering digitally now (for obvious reasons), and not only is that easier for you folks, but it’s also easy for us to process.

With no one using the PO Box any longer, we had no reason to keep it open. Please do not try snail-mailing us any longer, as we’re not sure how accurate the USPS’s mail forwrading system will be, and it’s only temporary.

Last week, Google Checkout was discontinued. Unfortunately, this was our primary payment processor, which we used as an alternative to PayPal (which isn’t the best company to deal with).

We’ve switched out entire catalog over to a site called StoreEnvy. The site is an easy one to use to buy our stuff from, but since StoreEnvy uses PayPal, it means we’re all back to dealing with PayPal for online orders. Bummer.

Hey guys, putting other people’s music up on YouTube without permission is kind of crummy, and putting other people’s music up on YouTube and then plastering ads all over it so that you can make money off their work is really crummy.

Rio de la Muerte’s Anti-Creative Records release unfortunately fell-through some time back, but that doesn’t mean you should miss out on his older anti-folk (folk-punk? singer-songwriter?) works.

Earlier today, Rio decalred that there was enough demand for his long out-of-print self-released first album that he has put it up for free online. From his personal facebook:

People always ask me about it, so I went ahead and made a page for free download of my first album, ‘Lovers in Winter and Other Short Stories.” Please tell your friends, burn them CD’s, sharing means love, and all that Thanks, and enjoy! http://riodelamuerte.bandcamp.com

Just a quick update to refute some sad news that is fortunately not accurate.

There’s been a lot of new sources (such as this one) that didn’t bother to fact check that are claiming that Kylewilliam of imadethismistake was found dead on Thursday. This is FALSE. We’re happy to say he is alive and well! The rumors of his death were greatly exaggerated.

Our friends Iafrate, who we helped distribute a free album for a couple months ago, are selling some classy looking shirts. If you like Iafrate, or the Washington Capitals, or bands that blatantly infringe NHL copyright to produce their own logo, you should definitely get one of these

The black shirts are $8 (plus shipping), white shirts have two-color ink and so cost a little more at $12 (plus shipping). Shipping will vary based on your location, but should be about $2 domestic. If you’re interested, contact Iafrate frontman Peter Evans by email at ninety7poundwuss [AT] hotmail.com, or on twitter @Real_PeterEvans

We’ve made it easier for you to buy our shit online in two ways: First, we lowered our shipping prices. Two years or so ago, we started charging a weird tiered shipping rate ($1.50 for first item, 50cents for each additional item). This has been lowered to a flat 10% shipping rate for all US orders (meaning an order of $5 will now cost $5.50 total). For non-US rates, please see our rates chart on our “How to Order”

Second, we upgraded our online store to make it easier to browse and add our products to your chart. We’ve also started to distro a few more items. Check out the new online store.

Speaking of our online store, We’ve found a stash of older Saw Wheel (and Ghost Mice!) CD’s in our dungeon. When Hill Billy Stew Records went out of business a while back, we bought up their remaining stock of the original release of the Ghost Mice/Saw Wheel split CD as well as Saw Wheel’s “The Next Train CD.” You can get them both for cheap through us (and you can pick up Saw Wheel’s white-vinyl 7″ that we released as well!). Keep in mind this is the original, classic Ghost Mice/Saw Wheel split CD we’re selling, before they re-recorded the songs and re-released the split on No Idea Records. This is the more rare version.

Look, you like punk music. You also like free shit. So here, we’ll give you some free punk music shit. Depending on how this goes, this may be the first in a series of free releases from Anti-Creative Records!

We’re partnering up with the Indianapolis punk band Iafrate (and the website HockeyPunx) to bring you a free digital EP. Iafrate‘s “Summer 2011 EP” is their first album.

If you’re not familiar with the band, but are familiar with other Anti-Creative Records bands, imagine the band imadethismistake has suddenly developed a chip on its shoulder, causing it to become a little more aggressive. What results is Iafrate.

This little bit of sad news is actually a little old, however was never officially announced on our site. Although Rio de la Muerte’s long awaited album “May All Great Things Be Everywhere Collection” was finally completed and mastered in early 2010, the album will not be released on Anti-Creative Records, or any other record label.

Rio de la Muerte

“May All Great Things Be Everywhere Collection” was an album that was first announced in 2005. It suffered many delays and setbacks. That it was ever even finished after 5 years seems like a miracle, and that it won’t see the light of day, although heartbreaking, seems like a bitter, fitting end for an album plagued by weird impediments.

This decision was primarily Rio’s, due to personal reasons. However, in a era were small DIY labels are all but obsolete, Anti-Creative didn’t have the means to release this would-be emotional and beautiful album in a way that would do it justice. Therefore the decision is agreed to be one that is unfortunate, but ultimately better for both parties.

I’m not sure how much of Rio’s take on this I’m at liberty to share with the world, but I do want to share some of his thoughts on the issue. Below is an excerpt from an email exchange we shared. Please note that the excerpt is intentionally brief out of respect for Rio’s privacy.

…It’s been so long since I’ve made it and I just don’t feel the same things I did then. My creative work has changed so much that the Rio de la Muerte project feels pretty dead to me right now. In fact, I played the last Rio de la Muerte show for a select group of my friends in Sarasota before leaving Florida. Now when I perform musically it will be under the name of Riol Vida (as in “real life”). I’m not really sure what the future of my music is going to be as of right now….

I’d like to point out that there are no hard feelings that led to or arose from this decision. The album is not being canceled due to any conflict or disagreements between Rio and Anti-Creative. We wish him the best, and we’ll keep you informed of anything we hear should Rio decide to work his way back into the music world.